


Bury your thoughts and fall asleep

by CatRoofDance



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Nick's POV, as soon as I'm concerned there won't be a major character death, not first person though, not yet, this is not really a happy story, we also learn a bit about Keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:04:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatRoofDance/pseuds/CatRoofDance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" For a second he wonders what he's doing. Why and when he had grown so attached to the boy who annoyed the living shit out of him because he wouldn't shut up. Now he wishes Ellis weren't so silent. </p><p>He wishes he weren't so sure he was holding a dying person in his arms. "</p><p>Nick regrets many things in his life. But of all the things he would rather undo what he wishes for the most is that they had never picked up that strange kid. That he could've stopped that kid from gunning down Ellis. And that maybe he'd listened to more of Ellis' stories about Keith. But now it's too late and all he can do is bring Ellis back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitsunekat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunekat/gifts).



> Title inspired by "Goodbye" by Apparat
> 
> This story is a gift for Kat aka macavity-the-mystery who kinda brought back all the emotions about this stupid game.
> 
> There will be 6 chapters and around 8k words in the end. There is only one plot point I'm not yet sure about, so I guess it'll be a surprising ride for all of us.
> 
> I used to play this game together with my brother, long before I knew what shipping was. I'm still not 100% sure in what way I ship these two, but at least there is a connection between them somehow, there is something that prevents Nick from leaving even though he could, he god damn well could at any given moment. 
> 
> But he doesn't.

"Fold out your hands

Give me a sign

Hold down your lies

Lay down next to me

Don't listen when I scream

Bury your thoughts and fall asleep

Find out I was just a bad dream"

**\--- Apparat** _**\- Goodbye** _

 

 

**_NOW_ **

 

When he hears the gunshot from upstairs in the safehouse Nick just knows it's the fucking boy they picked up a couple of days before. He knew he was trouble when they first met him, with his big eyes and nervous laughter and ruined finger nails. Thaniel, he said his name was, no, not Daniel, Thaniel, and Nick bets before the world went to shit he was the pretentious son of a rich dude.

These days a single gunshot isn't something to worry about too much but when Rochelle shouts for him he instantly knows it's serious. Her voice is so strangled, like she almost couldn't get his name out of her mouth. So, not a gun gone off by accident. Not Ellis who forgot to get the safety on before pushing the gun into the waistband of his stupid coverall. Not Coach trying to shoot doves out of the second floor window to finally improve his aim.

No, this is something else entirely.

Still, Nick's only slowly moving up the stairs, not running, he is careful to make some noise so he doesn't startle whoever is shooting a gun. The stairs under his feet give in easily, giving away the telltale sound of someone approaching.

He can hear a hushed voice from upstairs, the kind you use to smother panic before it spreads and Nick soon realises it's Ellis delivering a constant flow of words. Rochelle's voice somewhere in between is surprisingly high-pitched, she shouts Nick's name again. Couch is rattling down a quiet litany of _fucks_ and _damns_.

When Nick reaches the second floor he already sees them through the open door of the room to his left. Coach stands pressed flat against the wall, a bullet hole right next to his head, dry plaster blown off in huge chunks; he doesn't move, he just keeps cursing under his breath. Rochelle has her back to the door, Nick only sees half her face from behind but he sees that her eyes are blown wide, she looks more frightened than he ever saw her even when facing a zombie - or a god damn horde of those bastards.

And then finally, when he steps into the room, he sees Ellis, hands hold out in front of him, body in a defensive gesture but still moving forward with an assuring half-smile. The smile Nick always wants to punch out of him because "Ellis, stupid, this smile will cost you your life one day".

And Ellis would just widen his grin.

Thaniel is standing on the other side of the room, gun in hand, pointing it at Ellis, hands not shaking, no of course not, that kid knows exactly what he's doing. This is not him going crazy or unstable or fucking nuts, this is a clever guy playing the game of survival of the fittest. He has two health kits crammed under his arm and a bag on his shoulders that Nick would bet all his earthly possessions on if he had any left is full of their last ammo and food rations.

When Thaniel notices Nick he shortly glimpses at him, a wicked smile in his face. He chuckles.

"Well, well," he says.

"Thaniel", Nick says and does his best to not sound as stressed as he is. "What's happening?"

"I was just trying to explain why I can't stay with you guys," Thaniel says and licks his lips. "And why it would be really super nice of you guys to give me your supplies so I can make it back to my group."

"Your group?" Nick says.

"Yeah," Thaniel says with a grin.

"Fuck this", Rochelle says and in the corner of his eyes Nick can see her slowly reaching for her gun at her hip. But so is Thaniel.

"I'd rather you put your hands up where I can see them, sweetheart," he says and somehow the fact that this kid can't be older than 16 or 17 makes it even more disgusting.

"I'm sure we can figure this out," Nick says and he just hopes this kid hasn't paid much attention to him in the last days because otherwise he would know that solving problems by talking about them is the last thing Nick would ever propose to anyone, ever. But maybe it will buy him time to come up with something, anything, to solve this god damn mess of a fucked-up situation.

"Thaniel", Ellis suddenly says and his voice sounds sad under his forced smile. "Come on, dude. It doesn't have to be this way." He takes a careful step forward. hands still outstretched like he really expects the kid to give in and hand him his gun.

God, Ellis.

Thaniel sighs, quickly looks from Coach to Rochelle to Nick, then finally back to Ellis. "This could've been so easy," he says.

And then he pulls the trigger.

Somehow, even after hundreds of rounds they put into zombies, this one shot, this one bullet, is loud and angry and brutal and makes Nick cringe. And then suddenly everything is in slow motion.

Rochelle's eyes widening in shock, her body slowly folding into a ball to protect herself, and midway realizing that the bullet was never intended for her.

Coach who turns his head, one hand outstretched as if he could catch the bullet with his massive calloused fingers, a bullet that will never reach him anyway.

Ellis with the look of shocked disappointment in his eyes, like he actually believed this to be a misunderstanding that could've been resolved, and then, when the bullet hits him into his left shoulder and crashes through his flesh and shatters bones, the look changes to that of utter surprise, a naive confusion about the finite nature of life.

During all of this, even before the cold fear mixed with hot rage reached from his brain into every muscle and vein in his body, Nick reaches for the handgun he had pushed into his waistband, and before Ellis even hits the floor he pumps a full magazine into Thaniel's brain, and when he hears the sobering click of an empty cartridge he seriously thinks about reloading just because he still can see that smug grin on the kid's face between the mess that his bullets made of his skull.

And then there is an ugly silence. Ellis lies on the floor and breathes. There is a stinging pain in Nick's forehead and he can't stop thinking about it.

"Jesus," Coach finally murmurs. The air instantly smells of fresh blood, thick and metallic. Rochelle gets her gun out and in sheer panic she starts pointing it at the dead kid whose brain is currently dripping down the wallpaper behind where he used to stand.

Nick lowers the weapon and exhales, and then, when time seems to flow naturally again, the ice cold rage hits him hard only to be instantly replaced by a gripping fear.

And regret. Maybe that as well.

Ellis to his feet is bleeding out. Nick looks down, paralysed, slowly loosing the grip on his weapon until it slides out of his hand and hits the floor with a muffled clunk. Coach is dropping to his knees, he continues his litany of swear words while he presses down unto the wound. Rochelle shouts his name again and again but Nick can't move. He can't bring himself to look away either.

Fuck you, he thinks, fuck you, Ellis. One day being so optimistic and positive and naive will kill you. And I always told you, no, no way I will be the one cleaning up after you.

Ellis is clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. Blood seeps through Coaches fingers, Rochelle opens a health kit with shaking hands.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry," Ellis slurs, his head lolling back and to the side again and again. "Sorry, guys, I didn't know he had...I didn't know."

And Nick wants to grab him and shout No, no you don't get it, you don't get it all, it's not _your_ fault, idiot!, but he is still standing above him motionless, still clenching his hands into careful fists and unclenching them in an endless repetition, he's standing and listening and watching until finally, eventually, horrifyingly, Ellis gives into his tiredness and fades out into a heavy and sick silence that washes through all their bodies like a tidal wave.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**_BEFORE_ **

****

They find the kid hidden in the garage of a suburb building. He's nervous, doesn't talk much and is painfully dehydrated. The sun outside is high and hot and that's fucking great because it makes the zombies move slower.

The kid says he's been alone since the breakout. That's several months and Nick can't imagine it's true unless that kid's amazing at hiding. But apparently he is, though hiding doesn't do much when you're hungry and thirsty. He got cornered by a horde, slipped under the garage door and decided to wait the whole thing out. It's been almost three days.

Nick doesn't stop pointing his gun at the kid even after Rochelle shouts at him.

"It's just a kid, god dammit," she says, shuffling her feet. But nobody moves. The kid stares at them with big eyes. He says nothing.

When Ellis suddenly takes his bag off and kneels down Nick almost jumps. The gun still trained on an invisible point on the kid's forehead he takes a look at what Ellis is doing.

Yeah, great, he should've guessed.

Ellis pulls out his bottle of water, shakes it a bit as if he had to make sure how much is still in there even though it's perfectly visible through the plastic, and then finally he offers it to the boy.

"Here, drink this," he says with his sheepish smile, sitting down properly now, folding his legs.

"Are you insane?" Nick snaps while he watches the kid thankfully gulping the water down. "This is your last ration, who knows when we'll find a clean supply."

Ellis simply shrugs. "He needs it more than I do, I guess."

"God dammit, Ellis," Nick says and finally lowers his gun. He looks at Coach and Rochelle but they just give him a content half-smile, like an honest to god act of kindness just made their day a bit nicer.

He can't believe he's still putting up with those guys.

Surprisingly enough Rochelle is the one who protests the most when they talk about taking the kid with them, talking about how her mother instincts weren't a thing and they should all just shut up. Coach is mostly silent, from time to time he mentions that it could be a good idea to have more people around and that helping each other could be the last thing that made them better than those undead bastards.

Ellis definitely wants to help. Maybe it's because the kid's not that much younger and Ellis is just excited to meet someone who's on the same page as him. But maybe it's just his stupid naivety, this strange need for goodness and kindness that only seems to grow stronger with every day and every corpse and every bullet they have to put into the heads of former humans.

Nick gives in easily, not because he thinks it's a good idea but because he's too tired to discuss this, too tired to try to convince the others that four is a totally fine number and that every new person is a risk and yadda yadda, the list is endless.

They offer the kid to come with them, at least for a while, and when they also offer him a gun he grins like an eight year old on Christmas, pulling out his own gun from where it was tugged into the waistband of his trousers.

"Found that a while ago. Grabbed it from an undead deputy."

Ellis whistles, Nick rolls his eyes.

They crouch a while near the gate, listening to the sounds from outside. It's dead silent, just the muffled  buzz of crickets in the distance, and when they finally open the garage door the heat hits them hard.

"Ok, here's for at least another five miles," Nick sighs.

"Hey uhm, thanks for taking me with you, I guess," the kid says, blinking irritated into the sun after being in the garage for so long. "Name's Thaniel by the way. Hi."

They all shake his hand. And then they move.

 

\----

 

In the evening they make camp beside a small lake. Coach managed to make a fire which wasn't actually hard with all the dry wood and grass around. The sun is setting behind them, loses itself between the distant houses at the edge of the suburb they've left a while ago.

It's more open space now, lots of fields and empty streets. It's making him nervous, Coach says, stumbling around in the open with nowhere to hide really. Rochelle just jokes that zombies don't carry sniper rifles and even if, they wouldn't know how to handle them.

Yeah, Nick thinks, but other survivors do, but he keeps that thought to himself.

At least there are less zombies out in the open. They haven't seen any for quite some time now and that helped to ease them a bit, to lighten the mood, to actually make them shed some of the nervousness they've been carrying for far too long now.

Nick eyes the kid who's sitting next to Coach at the campfire. He warmed up to them a bit, started to talk, about his family (lost in the first panic, probably turned), his friends (evacuated in the first wave), his girl (hopefully save somewhere, hope dies last). He still looks suspicious, he has a nervous tic in his left eyelid, his nails are bitten short, he lifts his shoulders while he talks, like he expects a being hit. Nick knows that posture.

Ellis appears next to him, nudges him carefully, and Nick is too tired to complain about this brotherly behaviour and his constant ignorance of people's personal space.

"You still don't like him?"

"Kid makes me nervous, is all. With all this flinching and shaking."

"He's been surviving on his own for several months, Nick. I guess seeing actual real people for a change would've made you all nervous as well." Ellis laughs, nudges him again.

Nick sighs. He hates to admit it but Ellis is actually right. They stare at Rochelle who's trying to roast a snake for a while before Ellis suddenly says:

"We wouldn't have left him, right?"

When Nick turns to look at him Ellis is staring into the sky, his arms crossed in a gesture that makes him look surprisingly mature and serious.

"Nah," Nick says even though he knows, he fucking _knows_ that's a god damn lie. But right here, under the vast night sky with all those little white dots slowly creeping out of the dusty atmosphere, with Ellis almost shivering with the moment, he can't tell him the truth. He can't go on and break his heart even though he probably should. Because this is the world they are living in now, where every survivor could be worse than hundreds of brainless zombies. Where the only ones you trust should be yourself and maybe your gun.

But he can't tell him that. Because in the end Ellis is also still like a kid, with naivety and painful optimism and motivation and positive energy. And that's actually precious, that's something worth keeping in this new fucked up world.

So he lies. He also puts his arm around Ellis' shoulder and pulls him closer for a short hug, and he smiles as good as he can.

"You know," Ellis says, still staring at the night sky. "This reminds me of that one time Keith and I went camping."

"Yeah?", Nick says. And then he actually listens to a full story about that one time Keith almost died.

 


End file.
